Category Archives: Foreign Languages

Long time no blog, I know! Regulars will know this has happened before in the history of my blogs, but I’m here now. I see I have 82 people following this blog now, so thank you very much! Especially given that you’ve had bugger all to read from me since November! Got some catching up to do, fill you in on the missing months. I think you had sussed out, though, towards the end of last year, that the reading had kinda dried up a bit and that I’d gone into a book slump again. You probably won’t be terribly surprised to learn that I didn’t meet my Goodreads Challenge last year. I was two books short, having managed 28 books during the course of 2018, whereas I’d set the target at 30. I have not bothered this year.

The List Challenges lists that I promised have now, finally, been published, so if you want to go through what I read in 2018, or the Handbag Books list, or even the list of books I’ve mentioned on here during the course of last year, you can now do so. Very sorry for the delay.

So, as I said, I’d been having Reader’s Block since the end of last year. I had hoped, as we let in 2019, that my reading mojo would return but, it certainly didn’t do so in time for the new year. In fact, things got worse. When you’re already a bookworm going through a book slump, the last bloody thing you need is bereavement, but that’s what happened. On the evening of Saturday 12th January 2019, my sister came round to inform Mum and I that Dad had died. He was 71, same age as his dad had been when he died, back when I was a teenager. We knew he’d had his health issues, but didn’t think, at the time, that it was something that couldn’t be put right if he got some medical advice.

However, as I’ve probably said before on here about my dad, he was a pretty stubborn bloke, not the sort to take advice from other people, and definitely the sort who, if he did go and see a medical practitioner, would tell them a few tales and would not be honest with them about the fact that he was a couch potato and that he liked a drink or three… His second wife, Gill, had found him dead in their bathroom, she had been away. She had phoned one of Dad’s sisters, and she in turn had phoned Ellie. Then Ellie came round to tell us.

Obviously, one or two people reading this will already know, some who are friends on FB, but for the rest of you, I’m fairly sure it will explain why I’m only just blogging now for the first time in 2019. I’ve not been reading much, if anything, and finally had my first book finish of the year last night! We’re in April, a few days away from my 46th birthday, and I have actually got a finish under my belt for this year at last! Regulars won’t be terribly surprised to learn that it was a non-fiction book which did the trick! Factual stuff gets me out of slumps! I have Mark Manson to thank, as the book was The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, and I really enjoyed it! You know my opinion of most so-called “self help” books, but occasionally something comes along in that genre which I actually find I can relate to, rather than finding it patronising and ableist like I do with so many others of that ilk!

You may recall that I read a similar book in 2017, that would have been Sarah Knight‘s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k, so I would recommend both books to anyone who is not struck on the usual bog-standard self-help books and wants something a bit different, a book that does look at things in a different way to most books of that variety. Back to the Mark Manson book, however, and I certainly found that a lot of stuff was very relatable, particularly dealing with people who were very like that ex-friend of mine – you know the one, initials HLA. Reading Mark’s book made me feel vindicated that I’d kicked that toxic bitch out of my life.

I can’t even recall what was on my Ongoing Concerns back in November. All of that kinda fell by the wayside, and I don’t even know where my magnetic wipe board is at the moment, although probably in the garage. You did know about the loom knitting and Pixelhobby, though, as I’d started those activities before I went into the book slump, and had mentioned them in blogs in the autumn. I will give you a catch-up some time on the Pixelhobby projects. I don’t currently have a project on the go, although I’ve got something in mind. Recently completed a couple of 4 baseplate kits, my largest ones so far, and it would be another of that size that I have in mind and have got some of my pixels put aside so that I know what I’ve already got.

The one thing that has been good, though, came the week before Christmas, when the Bus Parking One was sacked after our 3-1 defeat away to Liverpool. Personally, I think he should have been sacked at the end of last season. I would have preferred it if he hadn’t been appointed in the first place, as I’ve never liked him and I have made that quite clear over the years, but anyway, United finally had enough of his crap and booted him out on 18th December, replacing him, the following day, with the Treble-winning Legend that is Ole Gunnar Solskjaer! So, Ole’s been at the wheel since just before Christmas, and the immediate response at the time was for the lads to thrash Cardiff 5-1 away! Then, on Boxing Day, we had our first home game with Ole in charge, a 3-1 win against Huddersfield Town, and that was the last time I saw my dad. At least Dad got to see a match under Ole and know that United were playing the proper way again before he died.

Ole was made permanent at the end of last month, so it should be interesting to see who he buys in the summer. He has certainly got the best out of most of the lads he inherited from the Portuguese Pillock, though! That’s what the second half of this season has been about – believing in the current players, encouraging them to attack and score goals, and to be a good man-manager and keep the hairdryer treatment behind closed doors. Ole learned from Sir Alex, though, so this comes as standard. This is why we’re back to the United way. Even when results haven’t gone our way, you still see the effort, which is what you weren’t always seeing in the previous five and a half seasons, especially the two and a half under the Tax-Fiddling One!

It also brings me neatly onto one of my current Ongoing Concerns, which is the biography Ole, by Ian MacLeay, a book which first came out in 2007, apparently, which would have been when he retired as a player, but has now been updated this year to take in his return to United as our manager. While we’re on the subject of football-related books, I got Michael Carrick‘s autobiography, Between the Lines, for Christmas, so I’ve still got that to read yet. It’s Carrick, you know. Hard to believe it’s not Scholes, lol!

Sort of still footy related, although the book isn’t, my next mention is for a book which was mentioned by Juan Mata not long ago. I love reading Juan’s blogs, One Hour Behind, but this was actually an interview with Guillem Balague, and Juan mentioned that he’d been reading Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari. One of the many things I love and admire about Juan is that he’s not just a great player on the pitch, but a really lovely, and very interesting, bloke away from footy! The sort of person I’d love to have a cuppa and a chat with – a natter with Mata! I would definitely love to have a chat with Juan about books!

Sales of Notre Dame de Paris, by Victor Hugo have rocketed following the devastating fire which has destroyed the roof of the famous cathedral earlier this week. I purchased a copy from Waterstone’s at the Trafford Centre on Wednesday night, and it said, in the introduction, that the cathedral had been in disrepair before, particularly after the French Revolution, but that when Hugo’s novel was published, its popularity led to necessary repairs being made back then! Hopefully sales might help once again.

I already had one of Hugo’s works, but that’s Les Misérables, and I’ve not got round to reading that yet! I would probably end up singing songs from the musical if I did, lol!

Victor Hugo always reminds me of when I was at high school, learning French… whatever textbook you use, and we used French For Today at the time, there’s usually a unit about asking for and giving directions, and so there’ll be this map of some made-up French town with various buildings on it so you can practice asking «Pour aller à la bibliothèque, s’il vous plâit?» and other similar questions. You will note that I’ve used the example of asking how to get to the library – have to keep it book-related, lol! Anyway, when you get these pretend French towns and their maps, it doesn’t seem to matter which damn text book it’s in, you can guarantee at least two of the street names! I shit you not! There will always be an Avenue Charles de Gaulle, and there will always be a Rue Victor Hugo! I would be absolutely gobsmacked if there wasn’t!

Recently been in France, actually, as we were in Disneyland Paris at the start of April, but no Rue Victor Hugo there, even though Disney did do a film of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, so Quasimodo did become a Disney character some time ago. Not really a holiday where I could get much, if any, reading done, though. Not that sort of holiday, unlike the one Mum and I are going on in the summer. That will be a more relaxing, chilled-out holiday, and some lengthy flights, so I should get some reading done!

The blog title, by the way, is based on April Come She Will, by Simon and Garfunkel, as I saw Art Garfunkel at the Lowry Theatre last Sunday. Just in case you were wondering. Yes he sang a few of the old ones from when he and Paul Simon were a duo – I pretty much grew up with their music. Mum and Dad had the Bridge Over Troubled Water album, and also I performed a fair few of their songs in the orchestra and choir when I was at high school. He also sung Bright Eyes, which was a solo number 1 for him here in the UK 40 years ago in April 1979 when I was 6! It was used in the film Watership Down at the time, which was about rabbits. As my Dad used to say… You’ve read the book, you’ve seen the film, you’ve heard the song… now eat the pie!

He’s going on the piss with Georgie Best, my dad. That’s how I see it now. As in our terrace version of Spirit In the Sky… “Goin’ on up to the spirit in the sky. That’s where I’m gonna go when I die. When I die an’ they lay me to rest I’m gonna go on the piss with Georgie Best!”

Anyway, I think that’s about it for now. I’m back and I’ve mentioned a few books, so we’re up and running for this year. I’ve started the blog-related list on List Challenges. This is the one where I mention them whether I’ve read them or not, so there should be a decent amount of books there by the end of the year, I hope! Dunno which ones I will actually have read by the end of 2019, but hopefully a few! Trying to decide whether to try a nice big chunky bit of historical fiction, perhaps Paris by Edward Rutherfurd. I have been looking at my copy of The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. Yeah, it is over 1000 pages long, but, as I’ve said before, if a book is readable, size shouldn’t be a turn-off! World Without End, which is the sequel, has been moved to a higher position on the Bass Amp Book Tower. Just in case, lol!

Oh, and before I go, some news re Adam Kay. You may remember the brilliant This is Going to Hurt, which I read in 2017, my favourite book that year, and indeed I met the author that autumn when he came to Waterstone’s on Deansgate (see photo above)… Anyway, he’s just announced that he’s got a new book, also about his time in the medical profession before he became a comedian, and it’s due to be published in October. So I will probably be looking to pre-order Twasthe Nightshift Before Christmas.

I think that definitely is all there is for now! That’s all folks, as they used to say at the end of Looney Tunes cartoons! Until the next time I blog, take care, Happy Easter and Happy Reading!

I probably should have blogged yesterday so that I could have wished you Happy Star Wars Day, but never mind! I hope the Force was strong with all of you!

I also hope the Force is strong with Sir Alex Ferguson. Just as I was about to start this blog, I saw the news that our legendary former manager has had emergency surgery for a brain haemorrhage, so I shall keep everything crossed for a full and speedy recovery.

The less said about the current side at United, and last night’s match, the better, so we shall move swiftly on and celebrate the fact that I have now finished my 18th book in 2018! It was Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction, by David Seed, and an interesting book it was too, giving me some ideas for further reading. I also have some more wipeboard markers and they seem to be a bit more bold than my other set. I think you should be able to see the words more clearly on my book board. Also, you can see my magnets, as I forgot to put my Harry Potter and Charlie Bucket Funko Pops on the photo. I am hoping to get more magnets when I go on holiday, as well as flags. It is somewhere I haven’t been before, so I will need some souvenirs, lol!

So, before I set off to see gorgeous sunsets like the one above, I need to sort out things on the book front. Having finished a book earlier today, it frees me up to focus on the book club book in time for 30th May, and thus get on with The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas, which is currently at 11%. As I have done previously, I might try to trim down the OC list before I go away, and not add any new books to it until just before my hols. I want to get The Hate U Give read, and then perhaps see if I can move both Hawksmoor and The Cellist of Sarajevo on a bit, percentage-wise. Maybe also my ebook, Twisting My Melon, by Shaun Ryder.

Technically, that is my match day ebook, but there’s only one home game left this season, against Watford, so I will have to read it whether I’m on my way home from Old Trafford or not! Otherwise, it wouldn’t be back in action again until the new season starts in August! I could always take it on the plane. Even if I don’t take my Kindle on my jollies, my iPad will be coming and I have the Kindle app on that, so I could read ebooks on my travels should I wish to.

Mum was looking at her books and thinking about her holiday reading earlier. Looks like Thinking Out Loud, by Rio Ferdinand, might be coming with her as one of her books. If Ellie has finished Six Little Miracles before we go away, she said she’d like to take that one with her, too. I’m still thinking I will take Dune, despite its chunkiness, so that I can read Dune on a dune in June! Opportunities like that do not present themselves all that often, so it has to be done, lol! My other book choices are yet to be determined!

A very nerdy photo, I’m sure you’ll agree! Some of my science fiction books, and some postcards from the Museum of Science and Industry (MoSI) in Manchester on the magnetic noticeboard behind them. You can see what a chunky monkey Dune is, can’t you?! One of those postcards shows the first computer, so I thought it was apt for putting on display near Computer Corner! There’s also a few robots, Tim Peake, and Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space.

I still think Resistance is Futile might be read soon, it sounds funny. Could take that away with me. THE great science fiction comedy, however, is The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To the Galaxy, by the late great Douglas Adams, and why shouldn’t space be a laugh?! Robots and aliens needn’t be scary, even if the Vogons did write the third worst poetry in the universe, and wouldn’t save their own grandmother from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal! On 25th May, 20 days from now, it will be Towel Day in honour of Douglas Adams – a hoopy frood who definitely knew where his towel was!

Actually, while we’re on all things geeky, nerdy and computery, how about this start to a cover letter for a job application…

Dear Sir or Modem,

LOL! That’s from a book called Crap CVs , by Jenny Crompton. “There are plenty of books on how to write the perfect CV – but none at all on what not to write. This is that book.” – It’s a great laugh and one of those books you can dip in and out of. I do think, however, that companies SHOULD take on people who have been observant enough to spot typos on their vacancy adverts – someone who can spell and proof-read would make those companies that little bit more professional, surely?! Not that my last interview was due to an advert, as it wasn’t – I was approached at a job fair last summer for a couple of copies of my CV as there might be an opening coming up. That led to the interview, and to being phoned up a couple of hours later and offered the job!

When you read through the examples in Crap CVs, you can see why some people have had considerable difficulty in gaining paid employment! Reaching level 58 on Flappy Bird might be a computer skill, but not really one which is required in a place of work! I do think, though that someone who lists, amongst their special skills, the fact that they bring in doughnuts on Fridays, should certainly be considered, at least for an interview! I’m sure there must be places of work where someone would say that constitutes being a good team player!

For my followers across the Atlantic, a CV is what you call a resumé. CV stands for curriculum vitae, and is probably used because it sounds a lot more fancy in Latin than it would in English, lol! Then again, resumé is French, so we’re all more willing to use a foreign word or two because it sounds fancy and a bit more short and to the point than putting the heading “Education and Employment So Far In My Life” at the top of the paper, even though that’s basically what it is, isn’t it?! We needed something that isn’t so long-winded! I couldn’t find it in the book, but I could have sworn that I read something somewhere about how not to apply for jobs, where a person had quoted Bon Jovi lyrics either in their application or at their interview, and told the prospective employers, “I’ve seen a million faces and I’ve rocked them all!”

Actually, if it was me sifting through a shitload of applications, and someone had put something like that on their CV or cover letter, I would be inclined to at least invite them for interview, even if it was simply for giving me something interesting and amusing to read during what must be a very tedious process! Well, providing they’d met the other criteria, lol, but a sense of humour from an applicant would go down well with me!

Anyway, I think that’s about it for now, so I shall get this published so you can all enjoy a good read. It’s a bank holiday weekend here, so a nice long one, and, for once, the weather is sunny and warm instead of the typical bank holiday rain, so you might want to go out somewhere, or perhaps have a barbecue, but maybe you’ll still find time to enjoy this waffle! Until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Last week of March coming up, and I got another book finished off on Friday night, my first e-book finish of the year. I had originally meant The Man In the Middle, by Howard Webb, to be my match day ebook for journeys home from Old Trafford, but I got so into it that I decided I couldn’t wait between home games and just got on with it! Does mean I’ll have to choose a new ebook for the home game against Swansea City on Easter Saturday, lol, but it’s another book on my Goodreads Challenge list – I am now up to 14/30 and if I can get another book finished off before March ends, I will be halfway to my target after just three months of this year! It would also maintain my consistent rate of 5 books a month so far in 2018.

I hadn’t read the book on the way home from the FA Cup 6th round victory over Brighton and Hove Albion because I was too bloody freezing after that game! It wasn’t just that it was snowing big time, but also that it was unbearably, bitterly cold, and the football was shite (a technical term that I need far too often under Mourinho, unfortunately!) so I was so cold and pissed off by half-time that I spent the second half in the concourse watching on the TV screen. We won 2-0 but, really, it was one of those games that we really should have won by a bigger scoreline, and would have done so under a more positive and attack-minded manager – someone who would do things the United way, as opposed to that boring, bus-parking pillock!

I really do hope he gets sacked as soon as possible, so that we don’t lose too many players – he’s pissing everyone off! Even players that he actually bought! Bad enough that he forced out the likes of Wayne Rooney and Bastian Schweinsteiger, who came to OT under other managers (Fergie and LvG respectively), but he’s even falling out with players that he actually signed, and he needs to go ASAP so that our remaining players might be persuaded to stay! I do NOT want a mass exodus of players! The style of play is awful, we’re far too many points behind 1st place and he doesn’t seem to care, and he’s driving players away. He has to go!

So, after the Brighton game, I just needed to thaw out, lol! Coffee was the order of the day when we got back in the car after that match! Hot coffee and plenty of it! Also, it didn’t take us too long to get home, which was another reason why I didn’t get my ebook read on the way home from that game. So I read it the next day instead, at home, and thought “why just reserve ebooks for when I’m coming home from a match?!”

So, I now need a new choice of ebook, and I also need some more non-fiction for my Ongoing Concerns. Talking of ebooks, I found my old Sony Reader device the other day, and have managed to get it recharged and working again! I am not even sure when I got that, or even when I put those books on it! It doesn’t have WiFi, unlike my Kindle, so I can’t download onto that one – I think I had to put them on via USB from my computer. I apologise for the poor picture quality, but I took that photo during Earth Hour yesterday evening and it’s a tad blurred, especially on my Kindle.

What gets me is the variety of books that are on it – and for some strange reason, there’s a couple of books on my Sony Reader which are in Dutch! How on earth did that happen?! I can’t even remember uploading some of those books, let alone the foreign ones, and my foreign languages I can read in (well, read at least a little bit in) are French, German and Spanish! Those are the ones I’ve studied to some level or another, as opposed to picking up little bits and bobs of a language for holidays! I studied French to A Level, and German and Spanish to GCSE, so as long as I have a dictionary handy, I can read a bit in those languages and understand the main gist of it. So I still don’t get why I have two books in Dutch on there! I can work out some Dutch words if they look like German words I know, but even so, I’ve not done a GCSE in the language (I’m not even sure if the language is offered at GCSE level at any high schools), and much as I’ve loved a fair few Dutch footballers who’ve played for United over the years, it still doesn’t explain why there are a couple of Dutch books on my Sony Reader! Even accounting for the fact that, at the time I acquired that particular device, United still had the legendary Edwin van der Sar in goal, it still doesn’t explain the Dutch books!

I got my Kindle in 2011, I won it, and those of you who’ve followed my blog for quite some time might recall the ongoing saga of my Kindle from the summer to about November when I actually received the device! If not, feel free to read the archived blogs from 2011. About August 2011 onwards, I think. Possibly as far back as the July of that year, but certainly August 2011, just before I went on my jollies to Turkey that year. Sometimes I think the battery goes down quite quickly, even though my Kindle is off, and when it is on I usually have it in aeroplane mode unless I am downloading a book and put WiFi on temporarily. Perhaps I need a new model of Kindle? I would have to look into the prices and the specifications of current models of Kindle, though. Transferring the books shouldn’t be too much of an issue, but it would be which device to get.

Looking at the photo from Earth Hour, The War of the Worlds is on both devices, lol! Mind you I read that in paperback earlier this year! Venus In Furs, by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, is on my Sony Reader. I actually read that some time ago, on that device! I mentioned that book on my blog donkey’s years ago, too! Been doing this blog since August 2010, so it was probably around that time. I think I was sticking it to the book snobs at the time, in one of my blogs, and saying that the advantage of an e-reading device if you’re out and about and reading on it, for instance on public transport, is that it is much harder for nosy and judgemental arseholes to know what you’re reading, thus it reduces the risk of snide comments and dirty looks! Essentially, if you want to read erotica on the bus, get an e-reader! Also, if you want to read YA but you don’t want sniffy tossers giving you weird looks for reading “kids’ books”, electronic reading devices are ideal!

Not that it’s anyone else’s concern, of course, but I think there are too many rude and nosy people in the world these days, and they really need to learn to mind their own business! Impertinent bastards! OK, that person on the bus might be reading The Fault in Our Stars when they don’t exactly look like a “young” adult, or they could be reading Fifty Shades of Grey, or The Da Vinci Code. So what?! We all have different tastes in books, we have our different reading abilities, and our favourite genres… No excuse for being a book snob in my mind! I think snobbishness is one of the main reasons which scares some people off reading, which is why I am so against it! I want everyone reading! I want everyone finding at least some books they can read and enjoy reading, so I don’t want snotty bastards getting all judgemental about other people’s choices of reading matter! I couldn’t give a flying shit if a grown adult is reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar on a bus or tram! It’s a damn good book anyway, so I can’t blame them!

I especially don’t blame them as I have got until 11th April to make any semblance of progress with North and South, but I’m not feeling it. There are just other things I’d rather read than classic literature! Even though I have read one or two classics when I’ve not had to, I guess it still does remind me of when I have had to read such stuff. Just because I have a degree, half of which was in literature, does not mean that I find “classics” any easier than other bookworms who didn’t take their education to that level! They can still be dry, dull and hard to get into, even for graduates!

Even when I was at school and studying Pride and Prejudice, it took me a while to warm to it! Things which were a big deal in Jane Austen‘s day just seemed like a big fuss over nothing important to me! I was reading this book in around 1987-88, thus around 30 years ago now, when I was 14 going on 15, and the idea that you should have to get married in age order just sounded totally pointless and unnecessary to me! As far as I was concerned, you don’t even have to get married at all if you don’t want to, and who bloody cares if your younger sisters tie the knot before you do even if you do get married?! 30 years on, I still feel that way. And as we’re now in 2018, a woman could just as easily fall in love with and marry another woman. I would not see that as a big deal, either. People can’t help who they fall in love with.

So, maybe my reluctance to go back to classics is partly because I really can’t be arsed with some of the backward and pointless ideas of those times!

Back to these times, then, and before we look at the Ongoing Concerns, such as they are, lol, I will now move on to the eye test I had on Thursday afternoon at work. As I have mentioned recently, I am coming up to my 45th birthday, so it shouldn’t really be too much of a surprise that it probably won’t be long before I will either need varifocals or two pairs of specs, one for distance and the other for reading. I have actually had a few chats with other friends who wear specs, and it might be better to have the two pairs, especially as the reading ones will be particularly strong, and it’s not just books I’m reading… I read books, I read stuff on computer screens both at home and at work, and I also read music, particularly when I’m at band on a Saturday morning, so as a musical bookworm and a computer-user, reading glasses might be the way to go when the time comes that I can’t get away with single prescription any more!

So, Ongoing Concerns, and the only one which is ongoing right now is The Word for World is Forest, by Ursula K. Le Guin, of which I have now read 41%. I think I am going to have to put The Chrysalids on hold, and North and South has been relegated from the OC list anyway, as I am not even up to 10% read and my disinclination to read it puts in doubt the likelihood that I’ll ever get up to that much of it read. I am therefore going to focus on the Le Guin novella, and get that finished before this month is out, and maybe find some other short books! Perhaps make a bit more progress on Hawksmoor, seeing as my book club book isn’t grabbing me. I’m not abandoning The Chrysalids, and might still retain it as a Handbag Book, but I don’t yet feel ready to resume it after the occasion where Joseph Strorm fuelled such an angry feeling in me! I might just put it to one side and try and resume it some time in the future. Not like I’ve not got other science fiction on the go, anyway, is it?

So, I’ve got science fiction, and historical fiction (I would class Hawksmoor as historical fiction as it jumps between 1711 and 1985, both of which are some time ago now, even the 1980s, lol!) but I need some non-fiction and another ebook for reading in the car after football matches when we’re stuck in the Old Trafford car park or in a post-match traffic jam in Trafford Park! I will try to sort something out by the next time I blog, which will probably be the monthly review next week, but until then, I think that’s about it for now, so take care and Happy Reading!

Welcome back to the crazy world of my book blogs! I had considered “Andrei and the Martians” as the title, but that sounds like a band name, really, doesn’t it? Like Adam and the Ants, or Florence and the Machine! Prior to book club this evening, Andrei was ahead in the early hours due to getting a fair bit of Russian Winters read yesterday, but I think the Martians overtook him again when I had a read of The War of the Worlds at lunchtime while I was at work! Thing is, the Martians would actually have had a hard job catching Andrei if it was the younger version of him – back in his footballing days he was bloody fast! He was at United from 1991 to 1995 and tied opposition defenders in knots! After we beat Oldham Athletic in the FA Cup semi-final replay at Maine Road in April 1994, the Oldham back four must have had knotted blood!

It was just Stephanie and I at book club again. Some of us have to keep it going! We both enjoyed The Red House Mystery, by A. A. Milne and I had brought a pile of books to the table for whoever else turned up to have a look at. As it turned out, it was just Steph. I’d arrived early and wandered round Waterstone’s looking for anything which took my fancy and which might interest any others. Steph saw Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman, and said she fancied reading that. I did too, I already had the hardback edition at home – got it half price in the January sales at W H Smith’s last month, lol, so we decided on that one and set the next date for 7th March, which is 4 weeks’ time.

As I said, I already had our new book club book, but the books either side of it were bought tonight at Waterstone’s and I also picked up a free bookmark with Moomins on it! Yay! Perhaps something else I should re-read, having re-read Mrs Pepperpot in the Magic Wood a few weeks ago, maybe Finn Family Moomintroll, by Tove Jansson, should be read again, lol! Another book I got when I was in the juniors at primary school, although possibly a bit older than when I read the Mrs Pepperpot book. The Moomins were being shown on Children’s ITV after school at the time, back in the 80s when I was a kid, and I loved it, so when Finn Family Moomintroll ended up as a choice in the book club brochure, I was able to read the stories the animated series was based on. I actually have five Moomin books, so four others besides the one I’ve just mentioned. I got them all when I was a kid, so I’ve had them since I was about 10 or so!

Anyway, getting back to the books I bought tonight, having been distracted by the Moomins, lol, I have had my eye on the Becky Chambers book for a while. I already have The Long Way To a Small Angry Planet, and I am under the impression that A Closed and Common Orbit is the sequel, although it could be a stand-alone. The other purchase tonight was The Lathe of Heaven, by Ursula K. Le Guin. I’ve used a lathe, a couple of years ago now, when I was doing wood turning at Start in Salford. Here we go, I’ll find photos for you…

This is a lathe, for those who don’t know – That round-looking chunk of wood would become a bowl eventually…

That bowl in dark brown wood was what was on the lathe in the previous photo! The barrel tub, trees and the snowman were also made on the lathe.

So, you get science fiction books and woodwork photos, lol! I did warn you that you might see some seriously weird and random stuff on this blog! Mind you, over 70 of you are following the blog these days, so there must be a market for waffly random blogs after all!

As for crafting, I might not have done anything with wood since early 2016, but I am still making cross-stitched bookmarks on occasions, and there are a couple on the go at the moment, including the Penguin one, which just needs finishing touches, really – a bit of backstitching and perhaps a tassle of some sort. I hope to have at least that one finished soon and then I will have a bookmark to show you for the first time in a while. I think the last one was possibly the Manchester bees bookmark, although I also stitched the League Cup Winning Years one, and a few other patterned ones with 2017 on them. There will be a patterned one with 2018 on it fairly soon. Bookmarks thus bring us neatly back to books again.

Prior to book club, I had been trying to get three books read as much as I could. As you may recall, I had finished The Red House Mystery with just over a week to spare before book club, so I was focusing on Russian Winters, by Andrei Kanchelskis, The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells, and Hawksmoor, by Peter Ackroyd. The latter of those, Hawksmoor, has reached the 39% stage, so we are over a third of the way through it, but as I had suspected, the main battle has been between the other two books, and both of those are over halfway now, with Russian Winters at 53% and The War of the Worlds just ahead on 56% – I am pretty chuffed with that. Two books over the halfway mark. Hawksmoor might take a bit of a back seat now, as I start on Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, my new book club book, but I am still aiming to get Andrei and the Martians finished off this month! I think that is doable!

If you cast your minds back to last month’s blogs and the mention of books for Holocaust remembrance day in late January, I mentioned a book called The Librarian of Auschwitz, by Antonio Iturbe. I made some enquiries about this at Waterstone’s, but it was unavailable. However, I did manage to get it on my Kindle, so I do have it as an ebook, and therefore it is a possibility for a match day book on my way home from Old Trafford! I also looked on my Kindle for another book which I had tried to find last year, but couldn’t manage to find, that being The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler, but for some odd reason, the only ebook version I could find was in German! Well, OK, I can read SOME German, but I am not about to go downloading an ebook in the language! I want the book in English, at least first of all!

Sometimes, you just have to go online, as I did when I bought Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, by Jordan Sonnenblick! I prefer browsing in actual bookshops, but there are times when, like Bono, you still haven’t found what you’re looking for! I was also looking for Crazy Rich Asians, by Kevin Kwan, a week or so ago, as I had seen it on List Challenges lists and on book-related items on Facebook, and couldn’t find that one while browsing, so I may have to look online for that. Drives me nuts when a book is only available somewhere else! Or when you prefer another country’s cover to that of your own country’s edition of a certain book, but don’t start me on that – it was a big complaint of mine the other year, lol!

That actually takes the list of different books mentioned this year up to 100 already! We’re only in early February, and we are in three figures! On that note, I think we’d better call it a day and get this published, so I can have a read, lol! Until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

I was going to do that in French, in honour of it being the 25th anniversary of my club signing my all-time favourite player, but bookworm translates as <<rat de bibliothèque>> or “library rat”, which doesn’t sound all that flattering, does it?! I know some people actually prefer to be book dragons rather than book worms, even in English, so I shall forego the rodent comparisons!

Funnily enough, on one book-related group on Facebook, earlier this week, someone asked whether any of us have any books in other languages beside their own, and whether we read books in other languages. Yes, I can read in other languages, although I am much slower in French, German or Spanish than I am in English, and I would also need a dictionary or some form of translation technology handy. I guess you can probably Google verb tables for various languages these days? Anyway, back to the books in other languages, and one of my prized books in another language is Un Rêve Modeste et Fou, the original French edition of Eric Cantona‘s autobiography. I also have the English version, My Story, both of which were signed by the King back in the mid 90s while he was still at United.

I miss those days… when United trained at The Cliff, and it was reasonably easy for a fan to go down there, watch the lads train, and then meet the players afterwards to get their autographs and have photos taken with them before they headed home! Not been the same since they started training at Carrington!

Today and tomorrow, 26th and 27th November, are the significant dates… I always celebrate the Cantona anniversary over two days because the news broke on the 26th, that Thursday evening in 1992, at around 6:30pm our time, and then Eric actually signed for United the following day. I was 19 at the time, a student, in the second year of my degree, at home with my parents and sister, but only my mum and I were at home that particular evening. My sister was at trampolining and I think my dad was away on business. I thought my mum was pulling my leg at first when she called me downstairs to tell me the news, which had just come on the telly. She wasn’t, though! It was for real! Manchester United had agreed to sign Eric Cantona from Leeds United for an “undisclosed fee” – later revealed to be a bargain, a mere £1.2 million!

United marked the anniversary weekend with a 1-0 home win against Brighton and Hove Albion yesterday afternoon, amazingly a 3pm kickoff which is pretty rare for United these days, lol, and I don’t care what others say, I think Ashley Young SHOULD claim the goal as his, rather than it going down as an own goal! I am totally against the current trend of treating slight deflections as own goals! The defending team’s player does NOT want it going against him, so let the attacking team’s player claim the goal as his! It should ONLY go down as an own goal if it was bloody obvious that the unfortunate player put the ball in his own net! For example, the then Blackburn Rovers defender, Jeff Kenna, at Old Trafford in November 1997 in a 4-0 win for United around this time 20 years ago! Now, THAT was a definite own goal if ever there was one! He rolled the ball back, thinking his goalie was there. His goalie, however, was at the other side of the net, as I recall, so the ball rolled over the line and into the net at the Stretford End, 4-0 to United, and Kenna stood there wishing the pitch would open up and swallow him!

Anyway, never mind my own goal rant, back to books… and we were on for books in foreign languages, weren’t we? Besides Eric Cantona’s autobiography, I do own a few other books which are not in English, including Charlie y la fábrica de chocolate, by Roald Dahl (I think you can work out the English title from the Spanish one in this instance, lol) and Die Bücherdiebin, by Markus Zusak, and I reckon you could take an educated guess at translating that from German… I bought myself that one when I was in Berlin in 2012. A good tip is to go for books you already know fairly well in your own language!

I don’t actually own copies of the books I studied for A-Level French, though. Those were Eccles College’s copies, and I never bought my own. Mind you, I didn’t want reminding. I found French literature hard to get my head around at the time, and I really went off the language for a couple of years, until United signed Eric Cantona, lol, so no, I don’t have my A Level French set texts, even though I do own copies of the books I read at high school for GCSE English Literature. Mind you, I don’t have ALL the books I read at uni for the literature half of my degree! I gave quite a few away when we moved house in 2006! If I hadn’t read them and didn’t think I was going to get around to it, I gave many of them away. My office’s charity committee were having a charity book fair at the time, so I gave a lot of books to my colleagues for that.

And now we return to our regularly scheduled look at books in English, lol! The Good People now stands at 37% read, and I am on for page 142 of 380. Over a third read, and I hope to get some more read in the coming weeks. The next book club meeting is on Wednesday 6th December, so there’s still time to get more of it read!

Oh, and I got some bargains yesterday! Prior to the match, I went to St Mark’s Church in Worsley for their Christmas fair. My niece is at the primary school there, and she’s in the choir, so she was performing at the event. Thus I listened to my niece and her classmates, and I also managed to get 4 books for the whopping sum of… wait for it… 50p! Yep! Bargains! It isn’t every day you get four books for 50p, is it?! And, unlike in the “Cheap Flights” song by Fascinating Aida, there are no additional extra costs – it genuinely did set me back a mere 50p to acquire the above books, lol! If you have never heard “Cheap Flights”, I suggest you look it up on You Tube! It’s a classic!

So, I picked up American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, quite a chunky monkey that one, lol, The One Memory of Flora Banks, a YA book by Emily Barr, The Odyssey, by Homer, for no particular reason, and same applies to The Pelican Guide to English Literature, edited by Boris Ford! Just seemed like a good idea at the time, lol! Actually, I’d picked two books, American Gods, and The One Memory of Flora Banks, and handed over my 50p, and the bloke said “You can take two more if you want to” so I chose the other two as well!

Blowing my horn on Friday evening in the Flixton Community Brass Band

Yep, that’s me on there, photo taken by my mum, but I took a screen shot when she uploaded it onto Facebook. It was the annual switching on of the Urmston Christmas tree lights, and our band have performed at this occasion since the Community Band was formed in 2014. Usually, it absolutely pisses it down throughout, but we actually had a spell on Friday where it stopped raining for quite a while, so it’s the least wet we have ever been, lol! Despite my dental surgery on Wednesday, I was fine playing my horn, as I found out on Thursday evening when I attempted it. Mind you, the teeth which had been removed had been at one side of my mouth, so putting my mouthpiece to my lips and blowing in it did not affect anything.

So, yes, for fairly recent followers, that is one of the other things I do besides reading books, lol! Well, I also work, of course, but I meant things I do in my spare time, when I’m not at Unity House in Swinton working as an admin officer! Oh, and as I’ve just mentioned my dental surgery from this week just gone, I meant to mention that Mum is now reading I Am Zlatan Ibrahimović – she started it on Wednesday, as she took it along to the hospital with her to read while I was having my dodgy teeth removed! She’s certainly enjoying it so far, finding it very amusing!

Well, I think that’s about it for now. I have covered a multitude of sins tonight, though, to be fair, lol! Eric Cantona, yesterday’s match, own goals, books in foreign languages, the latest progress of my book club book, church fair book bargains, brass bands, Christmas lights, dental surgery and Zlatan! All being well, I plan to get some Christmas shopping done tomorrow after work, so you probably won’t be getting a blog from me tomorrow – I’ll be mooching round the Trafford Centre, no doubt heading to Waterstone’s during the course of the evening, lol! So, until I do present you with the next instalment of vaguely book-related waffle, take care and Happy Reading!

Good evening, and, for my followers in the USA, Happy Thanksgiving! I guess you’re probably busy right now, you’ve got family round, or you’ve gone round to theirs, and you’re stuffed to the eyeballs with food, but I hope you’re having a good day and that you’ll eventually get some time to have a nice read! I guess you’re hoping for some book sales on Black Friday?!

Right then, back to events here in my part of the UK!

So, as you might recall from Tuesday’s blog, I’d had my x-ray appointment at Hope Hospital (Salford Royal) on Monday morning, and they then booked me in for my surgery on Wednesday, thus yesterday afternoon… so I have been off work yesterday and today. When you have the sedation I opt for, it can last in your body for up to 24 hours after it’s been given, so I have to have the next day off as well as the day of my surgery. I’ve had this done a few times over the years, as you can probably tell, so I’m very familiar with the procedures.

Well, I had the surgery yesterday afternoon, and they actually took me in at 2:30, so half an hour early (I think a previous op had been cancelled, so as Mum and I arrived in plenty of time, they took me in ahead of my original 3pm appointment), and took the teeth out, two of them together, upper left 7 and 8 for any of you who wish to know, and then after some time in recovery and being advised on aftercare, we went home, although not before stopping at WH Smith’s in the hospital and purchasing a book, lol, and I had a snooze for a bit once I got home. I did feel a little sore when the anaesthetic wore off, but considering I had had two neighbouring teeth out, I didn’t feel as “badger’s arse” as I thought I would. A little sore, yes, but not exactly in serious discomfort.

I have also been using some of the time to have a good read, and I have made good progress with The Good People, by Hannah Kent, our current book club choice. I am now 30% of the way through the novel. I am enjoying it, but perhaps a glossary of Gaelic words and names would help matters, particularly a pronunciation guide! I do have family over in Ireland, but I don’t exactly want to mither them to death with pronunciation queries! Hopefully there’s something online that I can look up… If anyone who has already read the novel could come up with some sort of guide to all the Gaelic names and words in it, that would be much appreciated! Still hasn’t spoilt my enjoyment of the book, thus far, though, even if I look at certain words and think “How the hell do you say that?”

Anyway, as I was saying in the previous blog, I know many of you like blogs where I mention lots of books as it gives you ideas. I’ll have to be doing some book shopping soon, but for others as I have Christmas shopping to get the hell on with! But as for my books, before we get into that “review of the year” mode which tends to happen at this time, let’s see if there’s some books I’ve bought but not mentioned on here already… Caraval, by Stephanie Garber, was the book I purchased yesterday at the hospital, but I have already mentioned that one. Pretty sure, though that there’s a few which haven’t been listed yet in 2017…

Of the books in the photo at the top of this blog, I have already mentioned Dumplin’, by Julie Murphy, and The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern, but I knew I had definitely mentioned that latter one on a few occasions as it was a charity shop bargain. It only cost me a quid from the British Heart Foundation shop on Salford Precinct, and that’s the hardback edition! Caraval has already been mentioned, of course, which just leaves A Man of Shadows, by Jeff Noon. I really do like that cover! I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, and I’ve been a bookworm more than long enough to know that, so I did read the blurb on the back, and thought it was worth it – “let’s risk it for a biscuit” I thought!

At the same time as I purchased A Man of Shadows, I also purchased Welcome To Night Vale, by Joseph Fink. The blurb and the cover both attracted me. Looking around my room for anything which might not have been mentioned, but to be fair, a hell of a lot of books have been mentioned this year! 518 different books, and we haven’t even got to the end of this blog entry yet, let alone the end of the calendar year!

Apparently, there are nearly 130 million (129,864,880) books in the entire world, according to a post I saw on Facebook earlier! One of several interesting facts in a post on a group called “I’m Not Obsessed, I Just Love To Read”, posted by Firdyawkal Nigussie. This list also says that the first book described as a “best-seller” was Fools of Nature by US writer, Alice Brown, way back in 1889! Wow! As someone on FB said, it would be especially amazing, as many female authors at the time either had to publish anonymously or under a male pen name in order to get their books in print. Indeed, Mary Ann Evans took the pen name George Eliot, and it is under this very blokey-sounding name that her novels are still published, including The Mill On the Floss, which I read, or at least skim-read, at university! Even the Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, originally took male pen names, being first published as Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, although they eventually DID get published under their actual names.

Other interesting facts from that list, and my thoughts on these matters…

It would take 60,000 years to read all the books in the world.It would probably take that long to read all the books in my room, let alone the whole world, lol!

The M6 toll road was built on two-and-a-half million copies of pulped Mills & Boon novels. Do you remember that Oxfam bookshop in Wales which was inundated with copies of the Fifty Shades trilogy? So many that they built a fort out of them in their back room?! Maybe they could offer them up to make a motorway if any new roads need building near Swansea?!

The page most readers lose interest at is Page 18. Wow! That early in a book? Well, if you get past page 18, from now on, you know you’re over at least one reading hurdle! I usually say give it rather more pages than that unless it’s a pretty short book! For a full-on novel, some say anything from 70 to 100 pages. Personally, when I’ve been doing my Ongoing Concerns lists during this year, I work out what 10% of the book is and see how that first 10% goes… So, if I’ve got a book that’s 380 pages long, let’s see how I feel about it when I get to page 38.

Thankfully, for you, this blog is not that long, lol, and we have got a few more “fresh” books mentioned which hadn’t already been on the list, and we’ve had some facts about books thanks to Firdyawkal’s post on Facebook, so I hope it’s been an entertaining blog tonight! Until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

One week of July left, folks! Latest updates on the OC front coming later, but I have been promising you some photos of the book benches in Manchester, haven’t I?! I think I posted the above ones before, and those are amongst the benches in the Arndale Centre. This event is running for two months, from 10th July to 10th September, so if you’re in Manchester at any time, get yourself a map and try to find as many book benches as you can! They all seem to be indoors, and there’s plenty yet for me to check out, as I’ve not been to Central Library yet. I have, however, been in Manchester Cathedral and the National Football Museum, and there are benches in both those locations.

These are the ones in the Cathedral ( see above). Yes, you can sit on them, but you should also explore the other side, as they are illustrated on the back as well as on the bench bits!

These ones are in the National Football Museum, so people can sit on a book bench rather than the subs’ bench, I guess, lol! There are four benches in the museum, two on the ground floor and two on the second floor.

I guess I thought, at first, it would be like when we had Cowparade, which was in 2004 if I remember rightly. Although one or two bovines were indoors, and could be found in hotel receptions and Piccadilly Station, most of the cows were outdoors, so I was a bit taken aback not to see any book benches around town, but it seems they’re all indoors. Certainly the ones I have tracked down so far! There are supposed to be some on Salford Quays, so I will have to investigate those – at the Lowry I believe, some at the theatre and some at the outlet mall. Also, if I were to take a trip back to Chorlton, where I worked for three years, I understand there’s a book bench at Chorlton Library.

Chorlton was very good for books, as anyone scrolling through my archives of this blog will discover! Not been for a while, but certainly when I was working in that part of town from 2009 to 2012, there was the Chorlton Bookshop, the Oxfam Bookshop, and several other charity shops with a decent selection of bargain books! I bought that Roald Dahl box set, which I gave Charlotte for Christmas last year, when I was working in Chorlton, and, although I’ve yet to read it, I acquired A Game of Thrones, by George R R Martin for just 79p at the PDSA shop! Despite the TV series being called Game of Thrones, the actual book series is called A Song of Ice and Fire, with A Game of Thrones simply being the first book in what is an ongoing series, with another couple of books expected in the coming years.

I think I shall have to watch the excellent Thug Notes video again before I do attempt the book – I don’t know if you’ve ever watched any of the Thug Notes videos on YouTube, and they’re definitely Not Safe For Work because of the language, lol, but they are a brilliant guide to literature! You know when you’re at school or college and you’re studying some work of literature for your English exams, and you have study guides for that particular book, like Letts’ revision guides or York Notes?! Well, Thug Notes is like a video-based guide to literature in a very colloquial way!

As you know, I’m all in favour of stuff which encourages people to read who possibly wouldn’t. I’m against book-snobbishness, and I am all for things like Thug Notes. Also, it doesn’t matter which format you read in! Hardback, paperback, e-books, audiobooks, large print, Braille… the main thing is to read for pleasure. Yes, audiobooks count, especially if they are the unabridged versions. After all, along with large print and Braille books, audiobooks are good for those with visual impairments, and are more readily available as a format than large print editions or Braille books. E-readers do enable you to enlarge the font size, so those can help, too.

Now that my niece has had her birthday, turning 7 on Saturday, I am able to show you the bookmark I made for her. I couldn’t really post this any sooner! I need to get on and mention a few more actual books, though, don’t I? I’ve been on about book benches and a bookmark, but let’s get down to mentioning some actual reading matter!

I had One Italian Summer and Neither Here Nor There in my handbag today, and managed to get a bit of each read at lunchtime. I think Keris Stainton must be a fellow Potterhead, as there is a mention of Voldemort in her novel! With the Bill Bryson book, I was reading about his visit to Amsterdam, a city I have visited twice, although I really must go again, as I’ve yet to visit any of the museums! I am now on for a chapter about Hamburg, which I have not really visited, but I did pass through the city in 1991 when I was going to Denmark with the City of Salford Youth Concert Band. We sailed from Harwich to Hamburg on the ferry, and then our coaches drove up through Germany and into Denmark. Coming home, though, we sailed from Esbjerg in Denmark back to Harwich.

I do believe, though, that there are parts of Hamburg where the walls have been coated with hydrophobic paint. Once a surface has been treated with this stuff, it repels liquids, and it has been done to stop drunken revellers peeing against the walls! If they attempt to answer the call of nature and have a wee against the wall, the wee rebounds back on them, wetting their shoes! Ruthless German Efficiency, if you ask me! If you’re a bloke, you’re in Hamburg, and you’ve been caught short, please DO find a proper public loo! You will need Toiletten, and Herren if you have a choice of Damen und Herren. Hope that helps!

On the footy front, STILL waiting for the stupid bloody Gnome to get his arse in gear and sign a couple more players as per Jose’s shopping list! Hence the books I am getting through while waiting for pigs to fly, lol! We had another pre-season friendly last night, and it finished 1-1, thus it went to penalties and one of the most farcical shoot-outs I’ve seen in a long time! If it were a film, you could promote it thus…

Starring Manchester United and Real Madrid in…

HOW NOT TO TAKE PENALTIES!

We won the shoot-out 2-1, so Real were even more useless from the spot than we were, although some of that was due to Dave’s Saves! DDG saved a couple of theirs, and they missed the other two they failed with! Our two successful penalties were converted by Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Daley Blind, so our Dutch defender essentially won it for us. I should have a stroopwafel, then, shouldn’t I?! Dutchman scoring a goal! Thing is, I have less need for stroops now, as the Dutch players we still have at United are both defenders – Daley Blind and Tim Fosu-Mensah. I needed more stroops when RvP was still with us, but as Mr van Persie went to Fenerbahce in 2015, my stroop requirements have decreased in the past two years. I may well need Belgian chocolates, though, as we have signed Romelu Lukaku from Everton this summer, and he is a striker.

A couple of charity shop bargains were acquired earlier, from the Age UK shop in Salford, where I picked up Around the World in 80 Days, by Jules Verne, and Iris & Ruby, by Rosie Thomas, which looked interesting. Anyway, I shall get this published and then you can admire the book benches! Until next time, take care and Happy Reading!